AUTHOR ARCHIVES

Tammy Flanagan

Tammy Flanagan is the senior benefits director for the National Institute of Transition Planning Inc., which conducts federal retirement planning workshops and seminars. She has spent 25 years helping federal employees take charge of their retirement by understanding their benefits.

For more retirement planning help, tune in to "For Your Benefit," presented by the National Institute of Transition Planning Inc. live on Mondays at 10 a.m. EDT on Federalnewsradio.com, or on WFED AM 1500 in the Washington-metro area.

Results 111-120 of 364

Are Cuts Coming?

March 25, 2011 Lately, it seems everybody has an idea for cutting federal retirement benefits in the name of balancing the budget. The Congressional Budget Office has weighed in following an earlier set of proposals from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Last week, a group of Republican senators got in ...

For Richer or Poorer: Final Words

March 18, 2011 Evaluations and critiques are very useful tools to those of us who present information. I always appreciate constructive comments so I know where I've hit the mark and where I've fallen short in my presentation. (In that spirit, thanks for the math error correction last week!) For the past two ...

For Richer or Poorer, Part Two

March 11, 2011 Last week, we looked at spousal survivor annuity options for those under the Civil Service Retirement System. This week, let's look at the situation for those more recently hired, who are covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System. The big difference for those under FERS is that they need to ...

For Richer, For Poorer

March 4, 2011 I recently received an e-mail from a reader named Melanie. She and her husband are both federal employees, and they're planning to retire later this year. They want to know if it makes sense to provide each other with spousal survivor annuities, or if it would be better for each ...

Redeposits for the Rehired

February 25, 2011 During the past two weeks, we've been looking at service credit issues, starting with military service credit and moving on to civilian nondeduction service. This week, in the final installment, let's look at redeposits, which come into play when you've had a break in federal service and you withdrew your ...

Civilian Payback

February 18, 2011 Last week, in the first in a three-part series on service credit issues, we looked at military service credit. This week, let's examine the civilian side of the equation: nondeduction service, which is civilian federal service that was not subject to retirement deductions. There are several different types of such ...

Credit for Military Service

February 11, 2011 Getting credit for civilian and military service toward federal retirement is among the least understood of all retirement topics. Since length of service is one of the two main factors that determine the value of retirement benefits, understanding service credit is an important issue for every employee. Along with simply ...

Rethinking the Best Date to Retire

February 4, 2011 Here's a new wrinkle in choosing the best date to retire under the Federal Employees Retirement System: It might not be the last day of the month. I recently received the following e-mail from one of my readers, Jerry: I am a FERS employee who is eligible to retire and ...

Where Credit Is Due

January 28, 2011 You say you want a revolution Well, you know We all want to change the world You say you got a real solution Well, you know We'd all love to see the plan -- The Beatles Today, I have a plan for a small revolution that could help federal employees ...

Be Prepared

January 21, 2011 The weather forecasters say it's going to be a rough winter here in the East. Maybe it will and maybe it won't. That's the way it is with predictions. Still, just knowing of the possibility, it's prudent to prepare. You can't deal with snow until it's on the ground, but ...